Coming to Grips with Unanswered Prayer
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About this ebook
Erwin W. Lutzer
Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer is Pastor Emeritus of The Moody Church, where he served as the senior pastor for 36 years. He is an award-winning author and the featured speaker on three radio programs that are heard on more than 750 national and international outlets. He and his wife, Rebecca, have three grown children and eight grandchildren and live in the Chicago area.
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Coming to Grips with Unanswered Prayer - Erwin W. Lutzer
Notes
Introduction
Since God didn’t answer all those prayers, I’m not going to bother Him with another request again. What’s the use? I don’t want to be hurt one more time!
The woman was bitter, and whether justified or not, her attitude was certainly understandable.
Her young pastor had been diagnosed with cancer. His congregation took their responsibility to pray for him seriously. They signed up for round-the-clock prayer so that at least one person was praying for him twenty-four hours a day. Additional prayer meetings were scheduled. The deacons anointed him with oil and prayed. Some fasted and prayed for days on end, beseeching God to heal him.
When he went into the hospital for treatment, some believers came to him with the assurance that he would be healed. God had shown them that this miracle was His will, they said, and He had confirmed it by giving the same assurance to several people independently.
Even when he collapsed into a coma, his wife and small children were assured that this sickness was not unto death. Though God would allow him to come unto the jaws of death, he would be delivered in the end.
But that was not to be.
He died, with his friends and family still full of faith that God would intervene and restore him to health. But unlike Lazarus, there was no earthly resurrection for this man.
Perhaps you can understand the disillusionment and even betrayal these church members felt. Over in the nursing home lived older people who had long since lost touch with reality. They no longer recognized their children; they longed for death, but it eluded them. Yet God took a young man with a life of fruitful ministry ahead of him, leaving behind a grieving young family and a sorrowing church.
If God doesn’t answer the concerted prayers of His people offered in the name of Christ and for His glory, why bother with prayer? Should we assume that prayer does not affect God?
When such prayers go unanswered, the easy response is to blame it on sin in the lives of the intercessors or on unbelief. Granted, there is no question that sin is a hindrance to prayer. David admitted, If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear
(Psalm 66:18). But in the case of the pastor described above, that answer is too simplistic. He was a godly man who regularly asked God to search his heart to reveal any sin that needed to be confessed. Doubtless the congregation had its share of carnality, but no overt sin